GAYO calls for tighter measures to alleviate air pollution
The Green Africa Youth Organisation (GAYO) has called for tighter measures to reduce the rate of air pollution in the country.
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The Co-Founder of GAYO, Desmond Alugnoa, said enforcement of waste management laws must be made effective to curtail improper disposal of waste and indiscriminate burning of waste material, which were some leading causes of air pollution.
“If you have a prerogative power to actually ensure that municipal solid waste is properly managed and you let people just manage it the way they want and without any enforcement of regulations that are in existence, you are going to have the situation that we are having in some cases now,” he said.
Mr Alugnoa was speaking at a Clean Air Conference held at the La Palm Royal Beach Resort in Accra to commemorate the International Day of Clean Air and Blue Skies.
The conference, organised by GAYO, is aimed at drawing attention to the urgent need for action, engaging communities in meaningful activities, and advocating policies to ensure cleaner air.
It brought together 100 participants, including experts, policymakers, youth activists, civil society, traditional leaders, academia, key stakeholders, and the public, to discuss and develop actionable strategies for improving air quality.
Statistics, recommendation
The Co-Founder of GAYO indicated that over 28,000 people die yearly due to exposure to air pollution, according to the 2020 World Health Organisation; hence, the need for stakeholders to be very concerned about the menace and act swiftly to address air pollution in the country, especially in the Greater-Accra Region.
He urged Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to consider integrating waste collectors into their structures to ensure safe disposal and composting of the wastes collected to prevent dumping them at landfill sites and burning them to release methane and other harmful gases into the atmosphere.
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Also, he called on the government to regulate the usage of vehicles on the road to prevent vehicles with fumes undesirable fumes from using public to pollute the air, else, the country would continue bearing the consequence of meeting the health needs of the public.
Waste management
The Waste Management Director for the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), Solomon Noi, lamented the rate of inefficiency in waste management resulting in, “residents within the metropolis resorting to burning of their waste, which contained plastics with polyamides in them”.
He noted that emissions from waste burns were very carcinogenic and lead to cancer and upper respiratory tract infections.
“Anytime someone burns waste it enters people’s room, and whatever you do, you inhale bits and pieces of these polluted substances as a result of somebody burning his or her waste 100 to 500 metres away from your vicinity,” he said.
He urged residents to report any person burning waste materials in their vicinity to the assembly via their unit committee and the assembly member as burning of waste in residential vicinities was against the assembly’s by-laws.
Mr Noi indicated that research had shown that the AMA’s organic waste, on average, formed about 60 per cent of waste composition.
“Hence, it is working on onsite systems that will turn our food waste into biogas, organic manure or compost that will support urban farming,” he said, adding that once that was done, “plastics, papers, and cans will be very clean and neat so that the off-takers at the factories will take them to process”.